K2 synthetic pot seized by deputies

Warrants served at five businesses

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Hundreds of packets of synthetic marijuana were seized from five San Angelo businesses Monday morning after search warrants were executed by local law enforcement, authorities said.

Tom Green County Sheriff David Jones said his department, along with the Concho County Sheriff’s Office, began their investigation into the San Angelo stores last week after months of dealing with K2-related cases.

“Most of it is coming from the San Angelo area,” Jones said. “It’s creating tremendous amount of problems.”

After talking to Doane and realizing he was having similar issues — teenagers taking the drug and having to make trips to the hospital, and traffic stops where the substance was seized — they decided to combine resources.

Authorities planned to spend Monday afternoon collecting items, which included pipes, from some of the stores.

It was unclear whether the stores planned to reopen today. The packages in which the K2 was sold didn’t have a manufacturer’s name, Doane said.

About 10:45 a.m. the two county offices, along with the U.S. Marshals Service and Texas Department of Public Safety, served the search warrants. No arrest warrants have been filed against owners of the store, Jones said, but three patrons were arrested on allegations of having synthetic marijuana or paraphernalia.

How the drugs got into San Angelo is still under investigation, Jones said. Judge Ben Woodward, of 119th District Court, signed the warrants. In one Tom Green County case, several deputies had gone to serve a warrant on a person who had taken the substance and barricaded himself in a house for five hours, Jones said.

K2 also may have played a role in a December homicide in Tom Green County, Jones said, a case in which a 17-year-old was arrested at a rural party in connection with the death of 19-year-old Samuel Sterling Harrison, who died of wounds from a shotgun.

In Concho County, Doane said, his office received one call from a teenage boy’s parents who claimed he was “tearing up the room.” The teen was taken to a hospital where the staff was unsure how to treat him because they didn’t know what was in the substance he took, Doane said.

Both sheriffs agreed that the effects of the drugs are significant in both communities. Jones said by the time they served a warrant at B42, near Angelo State University, the shop had made $700 selling the compound. The shop also sells clothing, skateboards and other items. They said on average a packet costs about $30, which makes it less expensive than marijuana.

“We have kids with a $1,500 or $2,000 a month habit buying this,” Doane said.

In September 2011 a law was passed for prosecuting synthetic drugs — a section that falls under the penalty group that deals with marijuana.

Manufacture or delivery of a synthetic marijuana, when the amount is between 4 grams and 400 grams, is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years in prison.

It was unclear Monday how much of the substance was seized.

San Angelo district attorney prosecutor John Best said K2 cases are treated like any other drug case — the state has to prove that a person knowingly made, or possessed with the intent to deliver, the substance, which in this case involves more than 100 chemical variations.

“If they ran a search warrant on a store, and the store is selling it out of their storefront, that’s pretty indicative of possessing it with intent to sell it,” Best said.